A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors-a lost classic that brings unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.

The whole city was covered with dark clouds, and conflagrations were breaking out in various directions. Could all of this have happened at once? It was then that black drops of rain, as big as blackberries, began to fall rain caused by the atomic bomb. I wondered what had happened to my home and church. With a pale face, I ran down the Koi highway

When the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945, Methodist minister Kiyoshi Tanimoto was just beginning his day by helping a neighbour on the outskirts of the city. Unbeknownst to him at that moment, the events that awaited him over the following days and weeks were full of horror, but through his courageous determination to save his